


Ex Libris

by sixbeforelunch



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-10
Updated: 2007-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 06:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixbeforelunch/pseuds/sixbeforelunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel has given this way too much thought. Season 5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ex Libris

M7Y-242 was the sort of mission SG teams dreamed of. The locals were friendly, not under Goa'uld dominion, but not ignorant of them either. They were familiar with the 'gate, and open to visitors. The climate was temperate and mild, the local village a respectable size. The only drawback was their unfortunate lack of advanced technology, which left Sam feeling restless while Jack wooed the mayor over many bottles of beer, Teal'c took in the theatrical offerings, and Daniel buried himself so deeply in the library Sam was afraid they might need to call in reinforcements to pull him back out.

The library, unlike a lot they visited, was still quite active. A cheerful staff smiled at her when she came in and pointed to the back where Daniel had surrounded himself with books of every shape and size. A few locals were around, not especially interested in their visitors. It was more or less like any library on Earth; shelves of books arranged all in a row. The only alien thing about it was the fountain right in the middle of the floor, under an open skylight. The culture here was big on the connection of water and air and they incorporated fountains and large, uncovered windows into the oddest places. Like bathrooms. And saloons. And libraries, apparently.

"You do know you can't check those out, right?"

Daniel looked up. "Hi, Sam."

Sam sat down next to him. "You...can't check those out, right?" Surely they didn't have an interplanetary library card available. Talk about inter-library loan.

"No. I tried, but...no."

Sam smiled. She could picture Daniel trying to convince the paternal looking librarian at the front desk to let him take a few books home with him, swearing he'd have them back on time.

She picked up a thin book sitting next to Daniel's elbow, but of course she couldn't read it.

"How's the translation going?" Sam asked.

"Good," Daniel said. "The language has Cyrillic letters, but the grammar and structure reminds me of Arabic. It's really cool."

"Good to see you're having fun," Sam said. She meant it more seriously than it probably sounded. Daniel had been so quiet lately. Tired and worn down. She was worried about him. It was good to see him have fun with his work again.

"How are you holding up?" Daniel asked.

"I'm fine," Sam said. "Just a little...bored, I guess. There isn't too much here for me."

"Right," Daniel said. "And you aren't a book person either." He said it with an odd mix of sympathy and superiority, as if acknowledging some serious and unfortunate disability that he secretly thought she could do more to correct.

"I like books," Sam protested. "I read."

"You're a reader," Daniel said. "Not a book person."

"There's a difference?"

"Oh yeah."

"Really?" Sam said, grinning. She's long ago learned the art of waiting for Daniel to get to the point.

Daniel set his pen down. "Yes. Most book people are readers, but not all readers are book people. Look." He tore a blank page out of his notebook and drew two circles overlapping. Venn diagram. On the left side he wrote "book people" and on the right "readers". He drew a squiggle down the middle where they overlapped.

Sam examined it. "I would have understood you without the diagram."

"I know, but I like making them."

Sam got that. She had a weakness for diagrams herself. "Okay, and where do I fit on this chart?"

Daniel drew an X at the far side of the right circle, right under the word "readers".

"Why am I all the way over there?"

"Because you read with a purpose, not just to read," Daniel said.

"I read just to read. Sometimes."

Daniel pressed his lips together and erased his first little X, putting it this time closer to the center of the right circle. "Better?"

"Maybe. How do you know I'm not a book person?"

"Have you ever dog-eared a page to keep your place?"

"Yes."

"Not a book person," Daniel said with conviction. "Book people never write in the margins, never break the spine of a book, never remove the dust jacket, and never ever dog-ear a page."

Sam had to admit she'd done all of those things. "Right. So, I'm not a book person, but you are."

"Well, sort of."

"Sort of? Where do you fit on this little chart?"

Daniel put an X at the top of the shaded area. "I'm...something of a special case."

"That's pretty much a given with you, Daniel."

Daniel continued as though she hadn't interrupted. "I appreciate books for what they can tell me, but I can learn just as much from the book itself as from what’s written on the page. The ink, the paper, the binding, the cover material. Hand-written versus printed lettering. Codex versus what we consider the modern book. All of it can tell you a lot about the culture. And it's not just books. I'm equally enamored of scrolls and tomb writings and monuments and stone tablets." He shrugged.

"So you're a writing person," Sam said.

"More like a communication person. I'll take paintings too. Or verbal records. Pretty much anything that can tell me about how a culture expressed its ideas."

"Hmm," Sam said, looking at Daniel's diagram. "But you're a reader too?"

"Yep," Daniel said, just a little too proudly.

"And I'm just a reader."

"I'm not sure about you. I know you're not a book person, but I'm not sure you're a reader either."

"I'm not sure I like you questioning my literacy," Sam countered.

"Not your literacy. It has nothing to do with whether or not you can read, or even how much you read. It has to do with why you read. You read because you want to learn something." Daniel tapped his pen against the table. "If you were alone in a restaurant would you read the back of the sugar packet just to have something to read?"

"Maybe."

"Yeah, okay. Reader." He didn't sound convinced.

"You," Sam said, "have given this entirely too much thought." She wasn't entirely sure she hadn't been insulted at some point during the conversation, but she didn't feel like running through the entire thing again just to figure it out.

"Yeah," Daniel said. "Probably." He turned back to his notes.

Sam had a sudden impulse to ruffle his hair. It was something she hadn't wanted to do in years, not since he was just the charmingly awkward fellow scientist with too much hair. She refrained from acting on the impulse. "Oh Daniel. Never change."

Daniel smiled at her, a genuine and rare smile. "You either."

"Not even if I change into a book person?" Sam asked.

"Well," Daniel said, with mock consideration. "That I could live with."


End file.
